Good afternoon,
my contribution to this thread is not directed at anyone in particular,
though I do want to suggest that the consensus among Canadian disability
activists/theorists/researchers with respect to the term "people with
disabilities" which Mary E. claims to currently obtain is actually
"wishful thinking" on some people's part.
Not all Canadians who work in this field endorse or promote that
terminology, and would in fact like to see its quick demise (for some of
the reasons others have stated in their posts); nor for that matter do
all of us (i.e., Canadians, eh) align ourselves with the term "consumer
movement," with its implicit reference to capitalist economics.
For my own part, I use the term "disabled," though I think the term
"people with impairments" needs to be trashed for some of the same
reasons that "people with disabilities" should be put to rest. I think
that proponents on the social model have not gone far enough with their
critique of disability and have languished on a rather simplistic
juridico-discursive conception of social power that does not (and
cannot) account for the productive forms that power takes in modern
liberal societies. If anyone is interested in my argument in this
regard, please see my article "On the Government of Disability" which
appeared in Embodied Values: Philosophy and Disabilities, a special
issue of Social Theory and Practice vol 27, no 4, October 2001.
One last thing> I did want to remark on the indignant and rather
self-righteous tone adopted by some of the UK contributors to this
discussion... It was suggested by some that those who use the term
"people with disabilities" err in their "logic;" these UK contributors
rhetorically (and quite pointedly) asked whether those in the discussion
who use the term "people with disabilities" (and Mary E. in particular)
would endorse terms like "people with racism" or "people with sexism".
In (rhetorical?) response, I would like to suggest that anyone who
spends any good amount of time reading (social model) disability
literature (popular and academic) that comes out of the UK can find the
same sort of (apparently grievous) equivocation. My current favorite is
the term "disability equality training". I guess proponents of the
social model would (on pain of logical error) endorse terms like:
"racism equality trainer," or how about "homophobia equality trainer" or
"classism equality training"? Shouldn't we rather (on pain of logical
error) want to use terms like: "racial/cultural equality training,"
"class equality training" and "sexual equality training," or even better
"anti-disability equality training," "anti-racist equality training,"
"anti-homophobia equality training"?
Best regards,
Shelley Tremain*
*Note: as of August 5, 2003, my institutional and email addresses will
be as follows:
Dr. Shelley Tremain
Department of Philosophy,
University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1Z1
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